Norman Dubie

The Boat

You kissed me sweetly on the bald spot
of my head – your lips
cold with tea
you had been drinking all morning.
You said your eyes hurt – that the tennis ball
was colored that weird green
so to be visible
above the clay court but not
in the long grass beyond the fence.
You said your eyes had shellac
on them. You have two
whiskers growing from your chin.
You remember still the photograph
of smiling African children
who did not ride the riverboat
that burned
terribly beyond the swamp in March.
You thought maybe two more weeks
of this and the long Labor Day
weekend and then you’d wish
we were all dead. Not the whole
fucking planet. Just our country
and two or three others thrown in …

From The Quotations of Bone by Norman Dubie
Copyright © 2015 by Norman Dubie